Archive for July, 2005

The Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) has an opening for a Postdoctoral Research Associate under an NSF-sponsored project called Science Policy Assessment and Research on Climate that is investigating climate science policy. The position will be located in the CIRES Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

DUTIES
- Engage in original research that will characterize the supply of, demand for or reconciliation of supply and demand of climate information.
- Engage in original research on the relative sensitivity of anticipated climate impacts to various causal factors in a range of areas, possibly including, ecosystems, extreme events, water resources.
- Collaborate with colleagues within CIRES on research
- Collaborate with national and international partners
- Publish research results in peer-reviewed fora
- Assist and lead in the development of meetings and workshops in support of project objectives
- Contribute to other, related Center projects in research, education and outreach

REQUIREMENTS
- Recent Ph.D. in a related field.
- Knowledge of climate science and climate policies.
- Experience working on interdisciplinary projects.
- Demonstrated ability to present and perform on a professional level through use of excellent written and verbal communication and interpersonal skills.
- Demonstrated ability to work within a team of researchers.
- Publication of articles in refereed journals and in the non-academic literature.
- Presentation of papers at national or international scientific meetings.
- International interests and experience

The position will be filled as a Research Associate in CIRES, University of Colorado at Boulder, and will be eligible for employee benefits, including 22 days of vacation per year. Screening will begin immediately and continue until the position is filled. Applicants should submit a letter of interest with Job Code, and complete resume and salary history. In addition, the applicant should furnish the names of three individuals familiar with the applicant’s professional qualifications for the position to provide references.

Yesterday’s New York Times contained an article about EPA’s forthcoming report on fuel efficiency, noting that the report’s release has been delayed a week,

“The executive summary of the copy of the report obtained by The Times acknowledges that “fuel economy is directly related to energy security,” because consumer cars and trucks account for about 40 percent of the nation’s oil consumption. But trends highlighted in the report show that carmakers are not making progress in improving fuel economy, and environmentalists say the energy bill will do little to prod them.”

The article also notes that, “The average 2004 model car or truck got 20.8 miles per gallon, about 6 percent less than the 22.1 m.p.g. of the average new vehicle sold in the late 1980’s, according to the report.” This reminds me of a post here from last March which referred to a bill introduced by Representative Nancy Johnson (R-CT) and cosponsors, called that would require EPA to improve the accuracy of its fuel economy standards, which she claims are overstated. This would seem to be a powerful lever to actually improve fuel standards without entering into the CAFÉ debate.

Question: What happened to this bill? Anonymous insider accounts welcomed.

While the details of the new Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate remain to be released, the prospect of a new international agreement on climate change suggests the possibly of competition with the Kyoto Protocol, despite some diplomatic words to the contrary. Some environmental groups, and some UK and Australian officials certainly see the new agreement as an alternative to Kyoto. While there will no doubt be plenty of opportunities to debate the new agreement, its very existence may create a crisis of allegiance for the scientific community. In other words, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) exists to support decision makers on climate change, and has a formal goal of being “policy neutral”. We’ve criticized this charade on numerous occasions (e.g., see this paper). But facing the prospect of two competing international agreements on climate change, can the IPCC maintain the pretension of “policy neutrality”? I don’t think so. At long last the IPCC may have to explicitly consider issues of policy, and if so, this would be a very good thing.

The left-of-center LA Times has a strongly-worded editorial this morning calling for the permanent end to shuttle flights as well as the International Space Station, the right-of-center Washington Times has a piece suggesting that any manned mission to the moon or Mars is a waste of time and money, and of course everyone is talking about the grounding of the shuttle fleet.

Losing a two to three foot long piece of foam is a very serious matter, and drives home the point Roger made yesterday that space travel is currently a very risky business. Hopefully it also gets NASA, the public, and Congress to start talking more about what we want out of a national space program.

The space station and shuttle are the biggest obstacles to making fundamental changes at NASA. Currently the shuttle is the only system capable of launching and constructing Station, which is currently about half complete. Permanently grounding the shuttle would all but end the ISS mission, making ISS the 2nd space station the U.S. has left out in the cold. Also recall that the U.S. is but one member of the international partnership, a partnership that by and large still thinks useful science and work can eventually be accomplished in low-Earth orbit. Furthermore, this year’s Congressional debates have reflected large support for keeping the shuttle flying. S. 1281, the Senate NASA bill, directs NASA to fly the shuttle as long as is needed to avoid any “gap” between the shuttle and a replacement. A mandatory 2010 retirement in the Republican House bill, H.R. 3070, was removed in the bi-partisan version that passed last Friday. So, while there’s no doubt that ISS acts as a 50 billion dollar anchor on the U.S. space program, abandoning it will not be easy.

Tackling this will involve thinking about a number of fundamental issues. What does society want in a manned space program, what are our basic goals and what are our priorites? In the end, three key questions need to be discussed. Should the ISS mission continue? Can ISS continue without the shuttle? And can the U.S. step off the path it’s been on for the last 35 years?

Yesterday The Toledo Blade published a letter from Larry Neal, Deputy Staff Director of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. In the letter Mr. Neal seems to offer a few olive branches, calling MBH “three honest men” and accepting that the world is warming. Read the whole letter here.

My sense is that the letter in a small newspaper by a staffer is a trial ballon. It may represent the possibility of a more conciliatory approach on this issue for Mr. Barton.

It is a relief to see the space shuttle successfully in orbit. But all is not well. The New York Times reported yesterday that “With a new realism born of disaster, NASA says that the risk of catastrophic failure during the space shuttle Discovery’s mission is about 1 in 100.” This is an astoundingly high risk for an event that is expected to be repeated perhaps several dozen more times in the next 5 years or so.

This level of risk it means that over 25 flights there is a greater than 22% risk of a catastrophic loss of an orbiter. The odds of surviving Russian Roulette (1 bullet in a 6 chambered pistol) are much higher, 16.7% chance of shooting yourself. If the odds of a catastrophic failure are at the observed shuttle success rate of 1 in 57, then the probability of a failure over 25 flights rises to about 37%. NASA is playing a very dangerous game.

Given that the Shuttle is destined to be retired no matter what, costs billions and billions of dollar per year and carries a catastrophic failure probability of Russian Roulette, perhaps it is time to think about retiring it sooner rather than later and investing our space policy resources more rapidly into whatever is to come next.

Several news agencies are reporting today that the United States is involved in a “secret” climate pact with Australia and a few other countries. Reuters reports,

“The world’s top polluter, the United States, is set to unveil a pact to combat global warming by developing energy technology aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions, officials and diplomats said on Wednesday. China and India, whose burgeoning economies comprise a third of humanity, as well as Australia and South Korea are also part of the agreement to tackle climate change beyond the Kyoto protocol.”

While there will be plenty of opportunity to discuss the pluses and minuses of the proposal, I find it very interesting and somewhat puzzling to see that the pact has already been endorsed by Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC. Here is how he is quoted by Reuters:

“I think it is a good idea because the development of these technologies is important and I’ve always said there has to be a partnership between North and South in these technologies. This is one way of working together,” said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “It does not interfere with the Kyoto protocol,” he said.”

I’m not sure how he comes to the conclusion that it does not interfere with Kyoto. Of course it doea. Here is how Australia’s environment minister characterized the agreement in the same article:

If the editorial board of the Toledo Blade gets it right on the Hockey Stick, then perhaps there is hope for the WSJ and NYT:

“The real problem is how to depoliticize climate science before matters get worse, and research loses more public credibility. That certainly should be a topic for congressional hearings and funding agencies like the NSF.”

The meeting has been called because of concerns among some in the meteorology community — “Although weather prediction in the United States has made significant strides during the past several decades, there are a number of warning signs that U.S. weather prediction and research are not living up to their potential.” And a background paper (PDF) by the University of Washington’s Cliff Mass provided in advance of the meeting provides a similar message:

“… there is a growing sentiment in the community that weather prediction research and operations in the U.S. have significant problems, and that progress in diagnosing and predicting the weather is far less than our discipline’s potential. All too often the large American weather prediction enterprise, both in research and operations, has worked with insufficient coordination and cooperation, resulting in inadequate resources for key tasks, inefficient duplication of effort, slow progress developing essential technologies, and unproductive or inappropriate use of limited manpower. Significant problems have developed because key players in the weather enterprise-operational centers, academic researchers, government laboratories, the user community, and the private weather sector-have not worked together effectively.”

In his testimony last week NCAR’s Jim Hurrell made an interesting comment, “… it should be recognized that mitigation actions taken now mainly have benefits 50 years and beyond now.” I wrote here last week that, “This point would seem to be generally appreciated by experts in climate science and policy but is generally lost in the more general debate.” But after talking to some folks about my post, it seems that this point is worth some further examination.

So let me pose a few questions to the climate science community. (And in particular, if the RealClimate folks would take a crack at it I’d appreciate it.) These are not economics questions or policy questions, but questions of climate science with relevance to consideration of policy options. And if these questions are dealt with by the IPCC or in the published literature, I am unaware of it, so pointers to references are also appreciated.

(a) If anthropogenic CO2 emissions we instantaneously halted on 31 December 2005, how long would it be before the scientific community could detect and attribute a discernable influence of this policy on the climate system? Specifically, please use the following four variables: atmospheric CO2 concentrations, global average temperature, sea level rise, and extreme weather events (heat waves, hurricanes, floods, etc.).

And there are some obvious permutations also worth considering, such as for example (b) halting CO2 emissions in 2020, (b) cutting CO2 to 1990 levels by 2012, and (c) cutting global CO2 emissions by 50% by 2030.